Bugs in the Genes
by SnarkWrangler
Summary: Shino's father is surprised by a mistake on Shino's college application. But was it really a mistake? What's the difference between entomology and etymology, anyway?


**Summary**: Shino's father is surprised by a mistake on Shino's college application. But was it really a mistake? What's the difference between entomology and etymology, anyway?

**A/N**: For my lovely Yanni, who came up with this idea when she was helping me brainstorm a background for Shino for another story I'm working on, where Shino is an entomology major. I was being a dork and trying to remember if it was entomology or etymology that was insect studies and she said something amusing that inspired me to crank this out.

Also, my dearly beloved hard drive crashed shortly after writing this. This was saved (though I lost some of my final edits on it) because I emailed it to Yanni, but my latest chapter of NL (which was done, edited, and 1.5 times as long as the longest standing chapter) may or may not be gone. The friend with the grandpa mentioned in the ending AN is going to play with it and see if he can make it cough up its secrets. I'm distressed because I only have five pages backed up.

Happy Independence Day!

**Bugs in the Genes**

The Aburame family was well known for its dedication to entomology. The majority of new insect species discovered within the last one hundred and fifty years were found and identified by an Aburame, and most prominent published works concerning insects were authored by an Aburame. Scientists around the world turned to Aburame field journals, field guides, essays and encyclopedias for painstakingly detailed accounts of insects.

Bugs were in the genes, as they say, so it was only natural for Shibi Aburame to assume a typing error when his son received his college acceptance letter admitting him to the College of Letters and Science as an etymology major.

Rather than bother his son with the error, he sent a discreet email to the university's office of admission, bringing the mistake to their attention.

It concerned him when their reply was brief, stating that Shino Aburame was, indeed, registered as an etymology major.

He acknowledged that his son must have erred carelessly in his haste to finish his college applications. The words _were_ similar, after all. Shibi sighed. That was why he had wanted to complete the applications _for_ Shino. If only he had insisted, this fiasco would never have occurred.

The boy (young man, he corrected himself) had become increasingly reclusive over the last several years and had made a turn for the taciturn these recent months. Shibi felt vaguely irritated. Shino would have to fix this himself. He was legally an adult now.

Shibi crossed the short hallway to his son's bedroom and tapped the door. The wood gave slightly, having been the home of termites for years. Shibi just couldn't bring himself to fumigate. He much preferred to study the termite colony. They were preparing for their seasonal migration of reproductive alates. Gingerly, so not to disrupt the termites' preparations, he pushed the door open.

Shino was sitting on an unusually intact wooden chair. He closed the book he was reading when his father stepped in. Shibi made a mental note to keep an eye on the chair. It was a potential landing point for the migrating alates. The floorboards groaned ominously under his feet. Shino gazed expectantly up at his father.

Shibi surveyed the room, formulating what he was going to say. He noticed that the furniture in Shino's bedroom was unusually termite-free. Yes, this would make an excellent new home for the alates.

"I understand there was an error on your college application. You'll take care of it." Shibi said, his voice void of emotion.

Shino stared at his father through dark glasses. After a suitable pause, he replied, voice equally flat, "Yes."

Shibi nodded blandly, coaxed open the rotting door and latched it gently behind him.

Shino stared.

Unless he was mistaken, his father was referring to the letter of acceptance he had left out in the kitchen. He had hoped, futilely, he realized now, that his father would understand its implications.

He had grown up under the shriveled and feisty thumb of Grandma Aburame, published author, prominent field scientist, and old bat extraordinaire. She had raised him with the fire and brimstone of an insect evangelist, and Shino had spent many nights of his childhood weeping with terror in the aftermath of Grandma Aburame's bedtime bug stories.

He had spent many of those nights fitfully awake, squinting in the darkness for signs of the bugs he _knew_ scuttled in the dark. They were dreadful, beastly creatures that wore exoskeletons instead of clothes. He could imagine the sight of their thoraxes and feared the moment he would be able to discern their darkly gleaming propleurons from their mesopleurons. A branch would scratch at his window or something would shuffle in the shadows and he would freeze, refusing to breathe until he felt the immediate danger had passed. Then he would waste hours staring widely in the direction of the sound, watching for the sign of a creeping leg or clicking mandible.

Fucking mandibles.

Shino had spent his childhood in abject terror of Grandma Aburame and the horrible images her stories inspired in his imagination. Her death hadn't left him with peace, either. As she cackled and wheezed under the frosty blue sheets of her hospital bed, dictating her final wishes to her surrounding family, she had very explicit instructions.

"My Cicindela collection," she rasped, speaking of her exquisite, expansive collection of pristinely preserved tiger beetles, including a male and female specimen of each species within the genus. Her children leaned almost imperceptibly closer, the tension in the air nearly palpable. "Will go to my darling grandson, Shino." She grinned with an air of evil toothlessness, and Shino was obliged to move among his silent, rigidly inflamed relatives to his grandma's bedside.

He gazed at her through the black lenses he wore and she stared back, wearing sunglasses on her deathbed as though it were a beach. "Grandmother," he said calmly, aware that his close and dear aunts and uncles may not be above murder, "Might it not be fitting to dedicate these specimen to an esteemed museum of science?"

But Grandma Aburame just wheezed and hacked with laughter. "Science? We are science!" She cleared her scratchy throat and spoke seriously, her voice deadly and humorless. "Don't be stupid." Then her attention was diverted back to her livid children. She cracked a wicked grin and continued her dictation. "As for my body," she patted Shino's hand absently and he suppressed a tremor of terror, "I'd like to be buried in a minimal casket. I've sent designs to the mortuary." She continued in her sharp voice, "It will be custom made, with holes along the sides, and I've given explicit instructions to them not to bother with all that embalming crap." Her voice petered out and she gave a dry cough, looking worn for the first time Shino could remember.

"Mother," Grandma Aburame's elder daughter spoke up, her voice even, "If you are cremated, each of us will be able to carry a bit of you with us in our home altars."

Grandma Aburame snorted. "Pshaw. If I go in the ground then all the bugs will get a piece of me, and I will truly be carried out into the world. If you still want a piece of me you can catch yourself a flesh-eating beetle." She sounded immensely self-satisfied, having regained her pep and grandeur.

Shino had felt an overwhelming chill at her words. In his mind's eye, he couldn't stop the visualization of his grandmother's face as the worms and maggots and unspeakably, unspeakably…

He didn't hear his grandmother's cackle as he fell forward onto her lap. Neither did he hear her fawning that he must have been overwhelmed by the exciting situation as she rubbed her gnarled hand over his hair, petting him like a dog.

Shino had nightmares for years after she'd been dead and buried. Sometimes, he still awoke in a cold sweat, hugging himself in fright as giant insects and their mandibles…

Fucking mandibles!

Shortly after his grandmother's death, he'd made placating arrangements to have the Cicindela collection rotate between the Aburame family homes at intervals of four months. Once things were in order and his well-being was no longer in jeopardy, he'd been able to branch out and find his true calling. It was something that didn't scare the life out of him, something that was, in fact, quite soothing.

It was called etymology.

It was the history of words, their intricate derivations and mutations over time. Beginning with the first ideas and syllables of a language, it followed through until the modern century, or until the language died out. Etymology was something exquisite and detailed that he could lose himself in. Something beautiful with its lack of legs and… mandibles.

The name was also conveniently similar to entomology, the study of insects. It was as though the field was _made_ for him. Not only was the subject enthralling, it came with built-in camouflage against detection by his family. And now that he'd found his true calling, how could he go to college to study a subject he loathed and feared? He couldn't. He had found his passion.

Now, how to break it to his father?

Shino brushed the back of his hand against his mouth. Maybe he wouldn't have to. He was technically an adult now, after all. He turned _Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology_ by Robert Barnhart over in his hands and marked his page with a torn scrap of paper. He rose stiffly from his seat and set the book, his gateway to rhetorical wonderland, on the desk untarnished by termites. Carefully pulling open the door to his room, he surveyed the damage and noticed that the termites were still actively devouring it. With a quick glance down the hall to be sure his father couldn't see, Shino pulled the small black market can of DDT out of his pants pocket and sprayed it liberally over the outside of his door. He eyed his work thoughtfully before creaking back into his room and closing the door.

There may be bugs in his genes, but by now he knew how to take care of them.

**A/N**: I apologize for my liberal slathering of scientific nerdology. I was having fun. Oh, and Yanni's idea for this story was, "What if everyone just assumed Shino would go into something like entomology, but he really hated bugs?" Thus, this was born. And in case you're wondering why I'm being a nut and giving Shino DDT, it's because one of my friends has a grandpa who's a total bug-hating kook and if he spots a mosquito over the dinner table, he'll grab an old, sketchy DDT can from the 1950s and blast it. Right over the dinner table. I thought it would be a funny twist on things. It's also after one in the morning, so it's possible my judgment is a little off. If the DDT is too racy for you, consider it bug spray. Please don't send me angry PMs about the ospreys and bald eagles. I will throw nerdology at you!

(This is not a DDT endorsement. I am not Barack Obama, and I do not approve this message.)


End file.
